If you ask the woman at the platform where the railroad tracks begin, she will
tell you that they begin at the horizon. She will tell you how they pass
through deserts and over bridges; how they traverse the hills; how they dive
into tunnels and worm their way through the soft Earth until at last, in
Milton, they surface in the sunlight and become one with the Station.
She will tell you how, at the Station, the trains pick up and drop off
passengers like cockle burrs. How the Station is a somber place: how the men
and women of the Station are always weary, for their travel makes them restless
and their restlessness makes them travel. How nobody speaks, but there is no
silence, because the Station never ceases to thunder with the rumble of heavy
urban transportation.
She will point out the men and women and she will tell you from their luggage
their hopes and dreams and fears. "That man over there with the umbrella," she
will say, "he is going back home." And you will know she is right, and you will
wonder at how each person at the Station has their own story, and how each
story threads through the Station and adds to the tangled mess of humanity you
find yourself in. She will pause, and you will remain wordless for a moment,
watching your breath condense in the cold air.
And you will be content in the silence you have created together, because it is
not the timid silence of the weary men and women but rather the confident
silence of shared understanding.
Then begin the questions. "What is your name?" "Where do you come from, and
where are you going?" "Really? I, too, have family in Cleveland!" And soon the
delicate, ethereal wisps of connection are crushed by the mundane brick facade
of conversation; the curious mutual vulnerability of strangerhood gives way to
the cool indifference of acquaintance. Soon you are discussing the weather.
As the morning haze clears, the sun becomes sharper, less diffuse, and suddenly
shadows become apparent all around you. You look up at the sky for a moment,
and when you look down again, she is gone, replaced by the facelessness of the
crowded platform. For a moment, the smell of peanuts wafts through the air and
in the distance you catch wisps of music; a guitar, a voice, the jingle of
spare change.
Now the train is leaving, and you along with it, and Milton is once more just a
memory.